


A Mountain out of a Molehill

by spycandy



Category: Danger Mouse (TV), LE CARRE John - Works, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - All Media Types, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Terrible word play, The Greatest Secret Agent in the World!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-29
Updated: 2012-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 07:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spycandy/pseuds/spycandy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who better to track down a mole than a mouse and a hamster?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mountain out of a Molehill

**Author's Note:**

> Refers to some small details from The Honorable Schoolboy, but no spoilers for the main plot.

_London, England: home to two of the world's greatest secret agencies._

_In the warren-like corridors of one of these hush-hush headquarters – tucked away behind Cambridge Circus – our nation's hidden defenders are in disarray and dismay after a traitor was unmasked in their very midst_

_In the other – hidden within an innocent-looking pillar box in Baker Street – similar feelings have been provoked by the sudden and violent toppling of a table on which there used to be an almost-completed jigsaw puzzle._

“What did you go and do that for chief?” complained Penfold as he scrabbled around the floor gathering bits of sky.

“It's Tuesday afternoon Penfold,” said Danger Mouse, removing his spare eye-patch from his good eye with a sigh. “I _always_ practice blindfold ju-jitsu on a Tuesday afternoon when there isn't a mission on.”

“I didn't know that! You'd think I'd remember you whooshing about the place and crashing into furniture.”

“Well admittedly there hasn't been a free Tuesday afternoon in quite some time. Maybe ever. Oh look, I think this is part of the mountain.”

The freakishly quiet Tuesday afternoon continued for just long enough for the 200-piece Alpine scene to be returned to its not-quite-finished state before the daring duo were interrupted by the large screen comm system zig-zagging to life.

“Job for you DM,” said Colonel K as soon as his image settled. “My old chum George Smiley has requested our help in tracking down a mole.”

“One of those tunnelling chappies?” asked Penfold. “Are they ruining his croquet lawn with all those little hills?”

“No Penfold.” Danger Mouse gave the screen a long-suffering glance. “In secret agent parlance, a mole is someone on the inside passing secrets to the other side.”

“Oh! Like with a ouija board?”

“What?! Oh, no. The other Other Side, as in the Russians.

Colonel K cleared his throat. “Ahem! Actually DM, young Penfold is right. The Circus did have one of those Russian moles, but they've already caught him bang to rights. Yes, yes, very good indeed. However when the ferrets went into the walls in search of this Haydon fellow's bugs they found signs of tunnelling. Looks like old Smiley's place has got the other kind of mole as well.”

“Right-ho Colonel, we'll get straight on it,” said Danger Mouse. 

“Hold on, I'll just add this pieeeeeeee...!”

As the sofa plummeted towards the garage, jigsaw pieces showered down the lift shaft.

>>>

“D'you think he's a jolly kind of person then?”

“Who, Penfold?” asked Danger Mouse as he steered the Mark III around a Soho church tower.

“This Mr Smiley. He sounds very cheerful.”

“Probably not at the moment,” mused Danger Mouse. “I think we'd better start by talking to the ferrets.”

Readers of Mr Le Carré's accounts of Circus life during this difficult period, might easily have supposed that 'ferrets' was simply a colouful nickname for the electricians who specialised in detecting and removing hidden surveillance equipment. Not so.

They met the chief of this merry band of workers on a third floor window ledge on the east side of the building, once a belligerent pigeon had been chased away from the rendezvous point.

“Cap'n Hodges,” the ferret introduced himself. He wore a white hard-hat and a military moustache, which only emphasised the way his nose twitched as he talked. “Good to meet you sir! Heard a lot about your work! Splendid stuff!”

“Hmm,” said Danger Mouse, “So much for being a secret agent. The intelligence community really are the worst gossips in the world. So what can you tell us about these tunnels?”

“Oh they're definitely mole-made sir! Very distinctive digging style, your mole, sir. Found the first one the day before yesterday. They go all over the place too. At first we thought it was just around the basement, you know, staying underground where he belongs. But damn if he hasn't dug right up through the bally sound-proofing to the fifth-floor meeting room. Goodness only knows what he could have over-heard there.”

“But you've never run into the mole himself?”

“Oh no sir. The rotter makes himself scarce whenever we're working in the walls. You'll have to sneak up on him, I suppose. Trap him like the dirty rat he is!”

“I thought you said he was definitely a mole,” said Penfold, confused by this sudden new revelation.

Captain Hodges cast the diminutive assistant a glare, but then hesitated, unsure whether he was dealing with mocking pedantry or sheer stupidity. “I meant...”

“Don't worry captain, we know what you meant.”

“Right, well, when you're ready sir, say the word and I'll show you one of the more convenient tunnel entry points on this floor.”

“All right. We'll find somewhere to park with less risk of ending up with pigeon poo on the seats, and we'll be right with you.”

>>>

Peter Guillam was once again indulging the fantasy of quitting the spy game and taking up chicken farming. In point of fact, he was mentally adding a small goat enclosure to his imaginary small holding, while an imaginary Connie Sachs called out unhelpful advice about Soviet methods of putting in fence posts from her rocking chair.

Between providing distractions for the Foreign Office, soothing ruffled researchers and endless fretting over his chief's present state of mind, it had already been a long week – and, as established earlier, it was only Tuesday afternoon. The last thing the Circus needed right now was Colonel K's people turning up another security leak in this building. That would give Saul Enderby just the excuse he needed to give George Smiley the heave-ho, no doubt with Peter and the rest of the small inner-circle working on Operation Dolphin hard on his heels.

A future rearing chickens and goats was looking alarmingly possible.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't hear the banging at his office window at first, only noticing when it was joined by the tooting of a car horn, an unusual noise at a fifth floor window.

“Penfold!” he cried as he thrust the sash window pane upwards. “How good to see you again!”

“Peter!” squeaked the tiny chap, jumping out of the yellow car and stepping onto the palm of Peter's hand. “I haven't seen you since that horrible training course at Sarratt last year. I'm very glad to see you aren't in stuck Brixton any more. This looks like a much more important position.”

The training had been a refresher on resisting interrogation. Every previous time Peter had been through it, it had been an exhausting ordeal, however the hamster had completely flummoxed the instructors. 

Tough-guy field agents, convinced they couldn't be broken, would invariably discover new weak points they had to work on. But Penfold, the self-professed coward, the weedy guy in strong glasses, was a solid wall of optimism and terrible jokes. Any information he did appear to give away was wrapped in confusion and misinformation. 

Papers had since been written at Sarratt on the Penfold Method of handling hostile questioning, although no one was quite sure how he did it so well. When asked how he did it, he explained, “I was _trying_ to give them the information, it just kept coming out wrong.”

“Ahem!” called out Penfold's companion, a white mouse. “If you've quite finished the touching reunion, where can I put the car?”

“I'll put it on my desk,” offered Peter.

“I can park, thank you,” said the mouse frostily. The car lifted into the air and flew over to the desk, parking between the in-tray and desk tidy. 

“Your driver's a bit grumpy,” said Peter.

“Hee!” said Penfold. “He's not my driver. That's my boss, Danger Mouse.”

“Oh right. Good to meet you Mr Mouse.” Peter carried Penfold over to the desk and stuck out his other hand to the white mouse, who shook his forefinger firmly.

“What's the quickest way back to the third floor?” asked the mouse.

“There's a dumb waiter for documents. Jump in with these files, I'll send you down.” 

>>>

“Cor, Chief, I'm down to the last of the sandwiches, we must have been searching these tunnels for hours.”

“It's been about 20 minutes Penfold. Come on, this way seems to have been freshly dug.”

“Oh 'eck!”

“No Penfold, that's a good thing, we must be on his trail. In fact, I think I can hear...”

Danger Mouse set off at a run with Penfold scurrying along behind him. There ahead of them wriggled two pink feet, as bits of wall insulation flew through the air.

“Ha! Found you. Now turn around slowly.”

Once he had wriggled around to face them, the mole squinted at Penfold. “Oh, at last, a bookseller!” he said, apparently wholly unembarrassed at being caught poking around a top secret facility. An extremely cool customer, thought Danger Mouse. Although his accent wasn't remotely Russian – more Nottinghamshire.

“I've been wandering around here for what seems like days,” went on the mole. “Can you tell me the way to the fiction section? It's a funny bookshop this Foyles. Plenty of reading material, but it's all 20th century history or stuff in funny foreign alphabets.”

“Bookshop?” asked Danger Mouse, wearily.

“Don't you start with me young mouse. Yes, we Midlands miners like a bit of reading as much as the next mammal. And my eyesight might be bad, but at my size, everything is large print. Now where can I get a copy of _Wind in the Willows_?”

“No, I mean, of course, quite right, but this _isn't_ Foyles. That's further up Charing Cross Road. You're right down by Cambridge Circus here.”

“Oh right. Well, that would explain the lack of a fiction section then. So what's this place? Some kind of government offices I suppose?”

It was rather awkward. Danger Mouse didn't doubt the mole's excuse – London could be very confusing, especially below street level. But the book lover had had days of access to all kinds of top level secrets and even if he didn't realise the value of the documents he'd read or meetings he'd overheard yet, once he did, he'd be a serious security risk.

He thought fast.

“It's... ah... it's the back offices of a film company actually,” he improvised. “Script research, props, er, rehearsal rooms, all that kind of thing.”

“Gosh! It's the next Bond film they're working on, isn't it? All that talk about Russians – that's going to be a scene in the next film? Is Roger Moore here?” The mole's tiny eyes glinted with excitement.

“Not at the moment, no. They're still working on ideas. Look, if would you mind awfully keeping anything you've read or heard under your hat for the time being? Spoilers, you know.”

“Right you are,” said the mole. “I'll be off to the bookshop then.”

He set off in the direction of the National Portrait Gallery.

>>>

Back at Baker Street, Penfold began gathering the shattered pieces of his Alpine jigsaw while Danger Mouse made the call to Colonel K.

“...we explained the situation to Penfold's chum, Mr Smiley's sidekick, and he said they'd get the tunnels filled in. So no harm done in the end.”

“Except to my jigsaw puzzle!” called out Penfold, who was dangling upside down over the sofa lift, trying to fish edge pieces out from behind the back rest.

“Now, now Penfold,” chided his boss. “No need to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

“Ho ho! Molehill! Good one DM!” chuckled Colonel K.

Penfold harrumphed. Given how many pieces were now missing, it didn't look as if he'd be making a mountain any time soon.


End file.
